The Lion

In the canto he comes «con la test’ alta e con rabbiosa fame», and the air itself seems to shake; in the game he is the only one of the three that stands in the open, on the slope that climbs towards the hill. Like the other two he does not hunt and never reads where you are: he lowers and raises his head on time, and that is all. He is also the largest, and the only one whose neck bends fifty two degrees instead of forty six when he stoops.

What he holds in front of him is the bow, the first weapon in the game, and the line the game prints says why it is that one: from violence you take the only violence allowed, and the weapon is not a prize but a sin you carry with you. On its own the bow will not shoot, because it lacks the leopard’s cord and the she wolf’s purse: the three beasts hand over three pieces of a single thing.

He too is taken by stealing and not by fighting, and in the same way: you wait until the head is already down.